TEXAN OF THE YEAR 2013

A Texan (or Texans) who has had uncommon impact – either positive or negative – over the past year. Check back tomorrow to see our next finalist leading up to this year’s Texan of the Year on Dec. 29.

Dec. 25, 2013

Texan of the Year finalist

TODAY’S FINALIST: DOUG PARKER

The US Airways CEO pulled off a long-shot merger with giant American Airlines to create biggest commercial carrier in world.

D

oug Parker hardly seems the kind of guy who would end up running buttoned-down American Airlines. He’s an open-collar CEO, casual and approachable, a persona in sharp contrast to an industry and airline known for an intense cut-throat culture.

Still, the youthful 52-year-old Parker can play winning corporate poker with the best. This year, he pulled off the improbable aviation royal flush — a merger of his scrappy US Airways with American Airlines in a deal creating the world’s largest airline and sliding him into the captain’s seat.

It’s an eye-popping achievement described in superlatives — from the last great airline merger to the “greatest corporate heist” — recognition that this deal defied long odds.

It also is an accomplishment worthy of putting Parker on the list of finalists for 2013 Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year.

Parker’s challenge now is obvious — to manage the behemoth he has assembled. Already a North Texas resident, he has replaced uncertainty at American with optimism of a new beginning. And there’s a new tone: Executives won’t have reserved parking any more; it’ll be first-come, first-served at company headquarters. He also promises transparency of executive compensation, the lack of which had been a burr under the saddle of American’s employee groups.

“We’re all in this together,” he vowed to workers at a town hall meeting the day the deal closed this month. “I don’t have a [parking] spot, either.”

The fates of both airlines were uncertain a year ago. American’s contentious bankruptcy fight with unions had taken a toll on morale, and the undersized, Arizona-based US Airways needed a merger partner to survive long term.

Parker had pursued mergers previously with Delta and United and failed. He then set his sights on the larger American, whose CEO, Tom Horton, had been a co-worker of Parker’s when both were rising executives at American in the late 1980s.

Publicly, Horton said he had no intention of being acquired, dismissing rumors of a US Airways bid during a meeting with The Dallas Morning News editorial board in February 2012: “I’m not sure what’s in the water out there in Phoenix,” Horton said. “Maybe it’s the cactus.”

Undeterred, Parker wooed American’s employee unions, persuading them to take a chance with him over American’s post-bankruptcy plan. It was an audacious gamble, with US Airways half the size of American. But it worked. With American’s employee unions on his side, Parker had the leverage needed for the minnow to swallow the whale.

History will show Parker to be an aviation game changer. The merger gives the new American a stronger financial foundation than it’s had in years. It also will be a business-school case study as Parker melds the feisty, underdog culture of US Airways with the conservative, deliberative American.